Finally, someone passed the smelling salts under the noses of Democratic Party officials.

Wake up: Public employee unions are not going to "partner" with government to fix government's pension mess.

Case in point: Leaders of the Chicago Police Sergeants' Association tried to compromise with City Hall. Their members revolted.

The association negotiated a contract with the Emanuel administration last month that included pension changes, along with wage increases. Union leaders agreed to raise the retirement age from 50 to 53; hike the employee contribution to retirement accounts by 3 percentage points; and pay more toward health care benefits. In exchange, the sergeants would have received pay increases of 9 percent over four years, and they would become eligible to retire on 80 percent of their final salaries, instead of 75 percent.

All in all, a fair deal. It would go a long way toward saving the sergeants' drastically underfunded pension plan. The union's leaders recognized the advantage of negotiating pension changes at the bargaining table.

Union members across the state are constantly demanding to be included in pension reform talks. They insist their voices aren't being heard.

Here, the union leaders were heard. And what happened?

Michael Shields, president of the larger Fraternal Order of Police, screamed that the sergeants' deal was a sellout. The rank-and-file members of the sergeants association listened. They rejected the contract on a vote of 876-134. That's a smack down.

The implications of this for the sergeants association will be sorted out during the next few weeks. But the overall message is crystal clear: Union members rejected a contract designed to shore up their pension system, even though the financial stability of that pension system is in serious jeopardy. FOP leaders turned on another union's leaders who had the temerity to negotiate a deal to save the retirement benefits of their members.

Does anybody wonder why the Illinois Legislature stalls on pension reform year after year?

In January, House Speaker Michael Madigan publicly lambasted the state's biggest public employee union, the American Federation of State, County and Municipal Employees, for this kind of obstructionism.

Madigan wrote in a letter to AFL-CIO President Michael Carrigan that nearly a dozen meetings with the union last year proved there was "little willingness from representatives of labor to draft a comprehensive, common-sense solution" to the state's pension crisis.

"To date, we have received no cooperation from the labor unions representing state employees on addressing these challenges. In fact, these unions often have been strongly opposed to any attempt to solve the problem."

We catch a lot of grief from public employees when we write about this issue. We have no doubt that lawmakers catch much, much more grief.

If you don't want to hear it from this page, then pay attention to Madigan.

If you don't want to hear it from Madigan, then pay attention to Mayor Rahm Emanuel.

"You cannot get to the retirement security and taxpayer security without the aspects that made up this agreement," Emanuel said of the sergeants' contract, "and, hoping so, hoping otherwise, is not a strategy."

The solvency of this city, the solvency of this state, and the benefits of every public employee and retiree in the state and municipal pension systems are ... at ... risk.

Leaders of the sergeants union stuck their necks out on pension reform. They tried to be reasonable in their "ask" of City Hall. They negotiated in good faith, both on wages and pensions.